Have you tried to get results with pastel painting, but given up before you've really started? Well, have another go. After all, if you went to the trouble of buying pastels, you don't want to waste them, do you?
You can have so much fun painting with pastels. The results can be surprising. I would say that pastels are my favourite medium to work with, and acrylics come a close second. Both, of course, are completely different to use, but we'll talk about pastels here.
Firstly you need to choose your materials. There are so many on the market, but if I tell you which ones I use you can't go wrong. Pastels come in the form of soft, hard or oil pastels, as well as in the form of pencils. I don't use oil pastels because I prefer soft ones in order to blend easily, but lots of artists do use them. For this article though, I won't refer to them.
I like to use the rounded soft pastels especially Daler Rowney Artist pastels. These are great for filling in and blending. The straight edged pastels are harder and good for edges and I do use them as well. There are many pastel pencils and they're great for outlining and for detail on animals. You will need a rubber for blending. I use the rubber from a pencil, and also a putty rubber rolled thinly. These are great for highlighting and blending colour.
Now, the base on which to paint. It should ideally be something with a bit of a groove to help the pastel to adhere to it. Ingres and Mi - tientes pastel papers are ideal. Ingres has a stripy grain and the other has a dotted texture. Pastel paper with a thickness of 360gms is really good.
You can also use sandpaper or buy pastel boards from art suppliers. If you decide to paint on sandpaper, be prepared to go through a lot of pastel as it is a rough surface. I prefer to use watercolour or a heavy duty cartridge paper. You will need a fixative spray again from an art supplier, although a firm hairspray will work wonders.
Now you can get on and have some fun! Be prepared to get your hands dirty. I'm always washing mine between colours. Play around with your pastels and use different techniques to get the feel of them. You can get lots of different effects.
*Hatching.
The technical term for producing a textured look by working small regular strokes in the same direction. Use more than one colour if you want to.
*Cross - hatching.
Where sections of the paper are filled in by criss - crossing the lines of pastel, to give texture and shading.
*Scribbling.
Just as it sounds, just drawing in any way to fill a space and maybe overlapping this with another shade.
Personally, I just paint in stages, building up my layers and blending with my fingers and a rubber. I paint alot of landscapes and seascapes and I always follow the same pattern.
In another article, I'll describe how I paint a landscape but if you would like to see a painting in stages,
Click Here
For more examples of paintings in pastel you're welcome to view my website,
See Pastels Here
To see the paintings set within their mounts
Click Here
